


Rest For The Wicked

by Madredhattie



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Historical Hetalia, WWII (Hetalia), dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-09-08
Packaged: 2018-02-16 15:22:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2274810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madredhattie/pseuds/Madredhattie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One-shot. A narrative following Prussia's experiences during World War II and how they affected him. Warnings for injury mentions, Holocaust implications, general dark themes as would be found in a war narrative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest For The Wicked

Blitzkrieg. Lightning war. An accurate term for what he and his brother have done in Poland. France and England, for all their bravado, have yet to act open on their declarations of war, and the secret protocols are being fulfilled. The humiliation of the Great War’s results is behind them now.

Prussia has his misgivings about the regime his brother is so enamored of. Political machinations that seemed, to him, directed to attack his successful portion of the disaster known as the Weimar Republic have left him sour. But as he walks on the lands that once belonged to him, he cannot help but feel a swelling of pride.

  

* * *

 

Seven months go by of little action for him. The USSR becomes the center of universal condemnation with the Winter War, and Germany is the one handling matters of ‘diplomacy’ in Denmark and Norway for the time being.

Their eyes are pointed westward.

 

* * *

 

The invasion of France is not met with the same success as that of Poland. Belgium proves herself more than capable of putting up a fight, and though she ultimately falls she’s proven a nuisance. Slow goings on poor roads has Prussia gnashing at the bit, battle excitement slowly spreading through his being.

Italy has joined now, but his enthusiasm has yet to be matched by results. His actions in the northern African lands are almost embarrassing. But their Axis holds strong, and the world is well on its way to spinning about them.

 

* * *

 

Dark spots have begun appearing on his hands.

 

* * *

 

Hungary is reluctant to join in an alliance once again, but she can’t deny Germany and Prussia have done well by her. She finally agrees late in the year, after regaining territory lost in the Great War and insistence on the brothers’ part. Mere days later Romania also joins the growing alliance, still angry over the losses to Hungary and the USSR, and more than willing to impress the German brothers.

 

* * *

 

News of Operation Barbarossa comes to him when Germany proudly drops a copy of the authorized directive in front of his brother. Prussia’s demands of his younger brother – what has possessed him and his leaders to attempt so bold a plan – go unanswered. Germany is riding on the high of his successes in both Poland and France, and it’s a stark wake-up for Prussia when he realizes this is the first time his younger sibling has refused to answer his questions.

And he knows Germany has never truly experienced the brutality of war in Russia. He will not let Germany experience it now. It takes some string pulling, but he is able to remove one ‘Ludwig Beilschmidt’ from the list of officers to be mobilized for the operation.

 

* * *

 

The dark spots have spread.

 

* * *

 

Romania supplies more forces for the invasion than all of Germany and Prussia’s other allies combined. The line of thought is evident enough; the nation is looking to win favor, and regain the territories he had to surrender to Hungary.

Naturally, his contributions to the effort are assigned to their Army Group South, alongside Hungary’s forces. Prussia joins them as well; Ukraine is a main objective of the plan, and he’ll like as not end up shuttled up and down the front where he’s needed.

 

* * *

 

The retaking of Bessarabia is a victory in both military and morale for Romania. Even Hungary is unable to resist a faint smile as the briefly named Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic embraces his older brother a year after their separation.

 

* * *

 

Reports filter in from the other army groups. Belarus has been captured, though pockets of Soviet resistance continue and there are hushed rumors of a vicious woman savaging any German soldiers she can get her hands on.

Leningrad is besieged, cut off from any surrounding assistance. Odessa is also under attack, soon to bow to the German and Romanian forces. Prussia looks up from the pages and rubs at the wrappings on his cheek. The healing process is itchy, accelerated as it is for a nation. He’s certainly a sight better looking than he was not five days ago.

His face isn’t torn apart from a well-placed sniper bullet anymore. A parting shot, as the Red Army retreated from Kyiv. Prussia suspects Ukraine is the gunwoman responsible; kinder than her siblings she may be, but her exterior belies the iron core the three Eastern Slavs share.

It’s a message, delivered in the most upfront manner: the Soviet Union will not go lightly. Prussia allows himself a shred of admiration for the woman’s defiance. Then he waves over Hungary, handing her the reports to see for herself. She will be the primary Axis representative in this area for some time.

Prussia will be joining Army Group Center in a matter of days. They are pushing on Moscow.

 

* * *

 

America has entered the war. Shame he’s here on the east, in the cold weather pursuing an increasingly hopeless chance of success in seizing Moscow. He’d like to see how the youngster has grown since they first met in that absurd excuse for a military camp.

 

* * *

 

Moscow is a failure, and with it, Operation Barbarossa. Prussia travels north to Leningrad, where the siege remains firmly in place. He meets with Finland briefly, discussing the situation. As far as the northern country can tell, he’s the only nation in the area. The siege itself is firmly in place, and Prussia dislikes waiting games.

 

* * *

 

He takes himself to the field medic to have his hands looked at. They can’t find any cause for the dark spots.

 

* * *

 

He’s returned to the southern force, in time to join in with the second attempt at taking Sevastopol. It’s telling how warfare has changed, in that it’s the first time he actually sees one of the USSR’s nations in combat. Ukraine is not so willing to surrender her lands.

Prussia runs into her during the city offensive, and they clash, forgoing firearms for a more direct confrontation. It’s a brief but intense fight, ended by the arrival of Romania and several of his soldiers. Prussia pays her back for the sniping in Kyiv with a severe gash across her own cheek, but the satisfaction from the rush of a well-fought battle is not present.

Perhaps he’s getting old.

 

* * *

 

Another protracted siege ensues, but the Luftwaffe proves its worth and in the summer they’ve taken the city. Bulgaria has joined their forces now, after officially joining the Axis a year earlier to allow ease of troop movement into Greece. The closest Germany and Prussia have been to each other during the war; the younger brother was marching in to salvage another failed Italian campaign.

Bulgaria himself is not enthusiastic about the war, and lets it be known quite readily. He and Romania get into a captured vodka stock and have a row over Southern Dobruja, which Prussia has the delight of breaking up. Holding back a pair of drunken Balkan nations yelling at each other is not his idea of a celebration of victory, and if anything he should be the one getting drunk. But he doesn’t want to, he realizes, as Bulgaria points out in his most direct way yet that he has no desire to be involved in this war, his people have no wish to fight.

After sending the two on their separate ways, Prussia briefly wonders if, maybe, his longstanding love for battle has begun to fade.

 

* * *

 

Bulgaria does not stay for the newest offensive, Operation Blau. Ideally, it will succeed where Barbarossa failed, and end the Soviet Union’s threat once and for all. Hungary rejoins Prussia and Romania as the push to the Caucasus and the oil fields they protect begins, though it’s growing clear that, like Bulgaria, she has no great love for this war.

Regardless of her wavering dedication, the offensive proves successful, and by the fall they’ve made it to Stalingrad.

 

* * *

 

Stalingrad is brutal. Romania and Hungary have their forces set to defend the bulk of the German push, and when he sees them during the assault both look increasingly tired and worn down. The fighting itself is savage and close, a tactic to render the Luftwaffe ineffective; the weary armies cannot afford being mistakenly bombed by their own people while aiming at the Soviet forces.

Russia is in Stalingrad, he learns, after Hungary drags Romania back one night with a badly twisted leg. Though they are taking the city, it’s at great cost, and even Prussia is feeling ground down by the weight of loss.

 

* * *

  

The German 6th Army, tired and worn down, cannot secure the city before being ensnared by a counter offensive. The Romanian and Hungarian forces trying to defend the army are decimated, and the effect is evident on the pair when they no longer even throw glares at each other.

They are deep in enemy territory, surrounded by Russia and his Red Army, and December has arrived.

 

* * *

 

Winter cannot kill them, but they feel the sting of the general’s reaches as plainly as any of their people. Not even the fiercest of hatreds can withstand the bitter cold. With the roar of desperate combat all around, Prussia stumbles into their makeshift quarters, finding the pair sharing a single threadbare blanket. Hungary is sleeping lightly, her head on Romania’s shoulder.

He glances up as Prussia stamps off the snow from his boots, a half-hearted cross of amusement and irritation on his face as he tilts his head towards the sleeping nation, as if to say ‘ _can you believe this?_ ’

Neither of them are used to this kind of cold, but there is hardly a nation in Europe who doesn’t remember the news of Napoleon’s unstoppable Grande Armée crumbling beneath the bite of the Russian Winter, more than a century earlier. Prussia knows it all too well.

He knows it from before Napoleon, before flintlocks made their appearance on the field of war, before he even thought of himself as a nation.

He will never forget the ill-fated charge, the cracking of ice, the plunge into water so numbingly freezing he still swears that his heart stopped. Seven hundred years on and he still remembers. And though he will never admit to it, a part of him still fears that same coldness.

A wordless gesture from Romania is all the invitation he needs, and Prussia takes a seat on Hungary’s other side, stretching the blanket as far as he can over his shoulders. Hungary stirs briefly, long enough to transfer her head to his shoulder instead, and the three huddle for the remainder of the night, the sounds of warfare fading into the distance as the cold presses down.

 

* * *

 

The three barely manage to escape capture at the destruction of the German 6th Army. Prussia is in shock. Never before has he ever lost an entire field army, not once in his long years, and Romania and Hungary are forced to drag the man with them, despite their own staggering losses setting them on the verge of collapse.

Over and over in his mind, he wonders why they were ordered to fight on without hope, without a chance of success. Prussia does not blame Paulus for ultimately defying the order to refuse surrender.

  

* * *

 

After Stalingrad, Hungary cannot fight any longer. Her departure is sudden and quiet, with only a hastily scribbled note left by his cot indicating she has not simply vanished. Romania has no sharp insult or mocking laugh for the news; he simply returns to gazing at the fire. While Prussia turns to leave, he catches a whisper of the other’s language wondering if she has done the smart thing.

  

* * *

 

Prussia no longer takes off his gloves.

 

* * *

 

Romania does not join Prussia in the 3rd Kharkiv offensive. Stalingrad has crippled his forces. That the man remains on the field instead of following in Hungary’s footsteps is a testament to how badly he wants to regain his territories lost to others.

The victory in Kharkiv is a brief respite after the disaster at Stalingrad. It doesn’t last.

 

* * *

 

News from the west. Italy is torn in two, Romano siding with the Allies while Veneziano clings to support from Germany. Prussia and Romania agree that night they would never want to be pitted against their siblings in such a way. Romania hopes for his cousins’ swift reconciliation and unity again.

He does not say alongside whom.

 

* * *

 

The last part of the year is spent chased out of Ukraine’s lands by the onslaught of the Red Army. Romania is forced back to his own territory by the end of the year, and Prussia finds himself fighting a losing battle to hold Kyiv. Ukraine has made good on her promise of two years earlier.

 

* * *

 

The New Year breaks and Prussia finds it harder and harder to care for this war. It’s almost as if he is not there, simply going through the motions of this endless battle. There is no victory, no glory, no goal, simply grueling slogs and senseless losses.

He was born to fight, and he only wants to lay down his arms.

 

* * *

 

German forces occupy Hungary in the spring. It has come to light that her leader involved in secret talks for peace, and this betrayal is unacceptable. Or so command says. Prussia can’t find it in himself to blame her.

 

* * *

 

Over the years he’s been receiving information of the war on the Western Front, but none so big as that of the Invasion of Normandy.

 

* * *

 

When he can only laugh bitterly about the news of Operation Valkyrie, he knows full well that he’s done with this entire mess.

 

* * *

 

In the past he would have been outraged by Romania’s sudden change in allegiance. But it has been a long and bitter four years, and Prussia wonders if it can even be considered a betrayal at all.

Bulgaria follows shortly after, and soon the Red Army has new allies in its push against the Axis.

  

* * *

 

The Wehrmacht is in full retreat, and Poland has risen to join alongside the USSR.  It’s a mad rush back to Berlin, with stories filtering in from elsewhere. The Red Army and Romania have seized Budapest, only twenty-five years after the last time the man set foot in the capital city of his hated enemy. As he marches alongside his weary men, Prussia wonders if Hungary welcomes the end to a war she did not want.

 

* * *

 

It’s during the retreat from the advancing Red Army across Poland that Prussia learns what has caused his hands to blacken.

Nightmares haunt his sleep during the remainder of the journey back to Berlin.

 

* * *

 

Germany does not look well when Prussia reunites with him outside the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin. He seems almost to be in a trance, staring at nothing, holding tight to a file. The documents only confirm what Prussia saw in Poland.

 

* * *

 

They feel it when their leaders die. It’s a shock, a sudden pain through their core, alerting them to the loss of the one guiding them.  The brothers are scrambling westward through Berlin when it hits them. When the agony passes, Prussia simply throws his head back and laughs. It’s a hollow sound, no joy at all, the last cackle of the defeated.

 

* * *

 

The war has beaten them all down. Tired, weary nations, desiring nothing more than peace from the hell they’ve been through. America and the USSR alone have come out from this on top, a pair of superpowers dividing up Europe to prevent another World War from erupting.

As Russia claps a hand on his shoulder to lead him away, East Germany resigns himself to this new life. He’s not without companions, at least, though he will not begrudge them resentment against him.

The war is over. And for the first time in his many years, he is glad to see it end.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from tumblr, this is a fanfiction that I've had in mind for YEARS and finally got around to writing thanks to inspiration from newfound friends. Longest fanwork I've ever written, and I'm pretty proud of it. So it's my inaugural piece here on AO3.


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